Lucy Liu Against All Odds

Too often in a situation, its "damned if you do, damned if you don't" difficult to weigh the pros and cons and figure out which action is best to take. Right now I've reached such a situation in Lucy's physical therapy. On the one hand, Lucy's physical therapy has been tremendously beneficial to her. On the other hand, Lucy tends to avoid me or even run and hide from me when she thinks I'm going to catch her to do her physical therapy.

I've described this physical therapy to try to straighten Lucy's toes on her right rear and return more flexibility to her foot. A closeup of her right rear leg on her profile clearly shows the problem with her right rear toes and the joint immediately behind them. When I do this physical therapy, Lucy doesn't show pain. When I do Lucy's physical therapy, between the times I'm working on her foot I also give her praise, scratch her in ways I know she likes, and give her Pounce treats (she loves Pounce treats!) all in an effort to make her physical therapy a positive experience for her. On Mothers Day when Russ was here, he distracted Lucy by moving a laser light around close to her while I did her therapy and she let me apply the downward pressure on the joint immediately above and behind her right rear toes and stretch her toes and work with her foot for several minutes without any protest whatsoever.

However, for the past few days Lucy has been doing her best to stay out of my reach totally. If she was laying on the bed and I moved to get up, she'd immediately bolt out of the room and flee to her cave under the couch. Perhaps she sensed I didn't feel well enough to pursue her. Cats are keenly sensitive to such things. She was right too, she did get to skip her physical therapy for a couple of days because I felt so rotten.

Finally tonight, Lucy again started coming up to me to have her neck scratched and to get petted again. She's back to her usual normal affectionate sociable self but the instant I moved a hand in the direction of her right rear leg, in a flash she bolted for her cave.

I don't want Lucy running and hiding from me, I want her (as I want all my cats) to see me as the source of positive things. At the same time, I need to do what's best for her in the long run and unquestionably what's best for her is for me to continue her physical therapy at least until I reach a point with her where her toes become flexible enough that at least part of her main paw pad touches the ground when she puts her right rear foot down. Once she reaches that point in flexibility, her own activities will likely bring about continued improvement in her foot.

Cats are tremendously loving forgiving creatures.

Thus the only logical choice for me to make is to continue Lucy's physical therapy until the point is reached where her own activities can continue to encourage further improvement without my help. I'll just have to hope that after Lucy reaches that point, she'll forgive me and show me her sweet lovable contented side again.

After all, Lucy, being Mom sometimes means loving you enough and caring enough to have the courage to do things that while they may not be so pleasant for you at the moment, will definitely benefit you and help you make the most of your life in the long run.

oh I hope she does come around....I know from being treated fur wounds myself, tho it's not the same, mama does it cuz it is necessary ofurwise I won't feel better. I bet Lucy knows this therapy is necessary even tho it's not the "funnest" thing to do. And mama says bravo to you, Lucy's mom, fur doing your best to make it more enjoyable!